I've just been inspired for the first time in a few weeks to write a blogpost. Truly inspired. One with a topic and everything, instead of the random gobbldy-gook I usually allow to flow. So please, sit back and enjoy this one kids.
My othordontist was a small, slight man with dark brown hair, a dark brown mustache, and glasses. His personality could be described with words such as "slightly off," "eccentric," and if you show no mercy, "disturbed."
Dr. Lipken was obsessed. He was not obsessed with teeth, good dental hygiene, retainers, no--nothing of that kind. He was obsessed with groundhogs.
His office, which was a former travel agency, had huge photos of jungles and beaches turned into wallpaper. He carefully added a few groundhogs to the scenes. Then he added a few friends for his groundhogs (birds, rabbits, etc). He managed to find and save every single picture of a groundhog he ever came across and decorated an entire wall in them. This wall is the one that those getting their teeth worked on had to look at. And trust me, there were a lot of pictures. After a time, some of his younger patients started to bring pictures they'd colored or school activity sheets regarding Groundhog Day.
We'll get to Groundhog Day in just a moment.
Dr. Lipken had a face mask--you know, the white cup thing with the elastic that goes around the back of your head? Yeah. That. Only Lipken's was a little souped up. Imagine you're about fourteen years old, you've just lain back into the weird dentist chair (they were permenantly in a reclining position), and you're making small talk with Dr. Lipken as he gets his tools from the counter. All of the sudden he's leering over you, telling you to open wide while he sticks sharp objects around your gums. This really struggles because you're trying not to laugh. Dr. Lipken's face mask boasts having printed on it a mouth, complete with buck teeth and whiskers.
On occasion, Dr. Lipken would hand me a photocopy of a comic strip that pertained to groundhogs in some way, and tell me to look at that while he worked on my teeth. To do so, I would have to hold my arm very high at a weird angle. And I was never sure whether he wanted me to look at the thing the entire time he was doing his thing (which could be around 10-15 minutes), so I generally just held it up for a long time.
At one point, I remember Dr. Lipken campaigning to get the small side-street behind his office named "Groundhog Blvd."
Obviously, Dr. Lipken's favorite holiday is Groundhog Day in February. Fortunately (or is it unfortunately?) I never had an appointment on Groundhog Day. I can remember seeing pictures in the paper of him performing a one-man parade up and down Carmel's main streets (complete with cape, sign, and odd headgear). I think in the picture there was a small flock of children following him. But my favorite part of Groundhog Day is that Dr. Lipken would rent a "groundhog" costume (I think he once told me it was actually a woodchuck or some other similar-looking animal, but not a groundhog) and wear it all day while he worked on his patients. How awful it must be to have been there that day. How awful, yet how cool.
Oh, and I musn't forget. The front counter where the secretary sits (Gloria, a chubby middle-aged platinum blonde woman who wears brightly-colored eyeshadows and fake eyelashes)(Gloria is a very nice lady and I always liked her) there stands a groundhog, upright on his two back legs. A real, once-living now-taxiderm'd groundhog. I forget what Dr. Lipken named him. It was something silly.
So...that's who straightened my teeth out.
And people wonder how one grows up to become me.
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